"I didn't think you were serious when you said you would shrink your Soul Beasts for me. You're really sweet."

"Uh, thanks?"

I doubted she would thank me once she saw what I planned to do. Not that she was going to wait for me to execute my schemes – she was already drawing cryptic runes in the air and casting some new curse or spell at me. Replicating her att.i.tude, I also moved because I had no intention of getting hit by whatever she was manifesting.

Swinging my swords, I conjured a storm of razor-sharp petals and directed it in Miura's direction. Her eyes widened briefly and she jumped back, hastily erecting a fresh barrier to deflect the blizzard of pink petals that relentlessly battered against the black screen. While she cowered uner her barrier, swiftly drawing up more runes, I closed in and sliced it apart directly with both of my swords. Cursing, Miura raised her staff to block my blades, but the trailing petals cut deeply into her, causing her to shriek in pain. She staggered back, blood dripping from her arms, but she somehow mustered the will to retaliate fiercely with her scythe, forcing me to withdraw.

As I took a step back, she threw her runes at me, which transformed into black orbs that detonated at pointblank range. Despite her efforts, I had gathered azure flowers to blanket myself, which protected me from the deadly blasts.

As the scorched petals withered away, I unleashed another maelstrom of petals in Miura's direction. She twirled her scythe around to slice them apart, and was relieved to see that these weren't as sharp as the ones before.

"Your magic is weakening," she remarked, and then smiled sinisterly. "It's only natural. You've been expending so much mana throughout the last three matches. I'm honestly surprised you're still able to fight. Your stamina and mana reserves are really impressive."

I didn't respond verbally, and instead directed another onslaught of petals. Vines whipped out to ensnare her, but Miura cleaved them apart with her spinning scythe. Raising her hand, she drew another script of runes before bombarding my position with a barrage of shadow bolts.

This time, I conjured up a shower of black flowers to absorb the shadow bolts, and they split apart, dispersing into even more razor-sharp petals that flew at her. Miura slammed the blunt end of her scythe's shaft onto the ground and summoned another barrier that protected her from the ferocious a.s.sault. Panting, she scribbled a fresh wave of runes with her finger, only to add them to existing ones.

A curse. No doubt she was trying to buy herself enough time to cast a curse upon me. I couldn't afford to let her succeed, or I would no doubt suffer an agonizing end like my poor Constellation spirits and Celestial Guardians.

"Ugh!"

However, Miura wasn't able to finish inscribing her runes. Blood dribbled out of her nose, mouth and eyes and she doubled over, dropping her scythe and clutching her chest. She glared at me with bloodshot eyes, not comprehending.

"What…what did you do to me?!"

She then widened her eyes when she realized something. Picking up her scythe, she leaned against it to support herself up, but she wasn't able to get any higher than her knees. Gritting her teeth, she continued to glower at me.

"This is wood magic…?"

I said nothing, but inwardly I was impressed. Miura certainly was sharp, having picked up that her new injury was due to my Pollen of the Fragrant Wind. Earlier, the "blunt" flower petals had been a cover – she had thought my magic was weakening, but she hadn't realized that she had inhaled a large amount of pollen while swatting those "feeble" petals away.

Not that I was going to tell her that. The less she knew, the better, but honestly she had already figured it out so there was little point in hiding the fact. Whatever the case, I decided not to waste any time and lunged forward to finish her off.

Despite her heavy internal injuries, Miura was still far from down. Tightening her grip on her scythe, she fended me off, and then kicked from below. I took a step back to avoid her desperate kick, and then retaliated with two strikes from opposite directions. Miura ducked the first one and parried the second one before rolling on the floor and trying to kick my legs out from under me. I jumped above her sweeping leg and swung both swords down, but she blocked them with the shaft of her scythe.

The ground beneath her split from the impact. Miura muttered something, and two shadowy bolts materiailized on either side of her betore streaking toward me. I attempted to deflect them with both swords, but they detonated upon impact with enough force to send me staggering backward.

"Phew…"

I righted myself up and a.s.sumed a new offensive stance. Wielding two swords meant that you were forgoing defense for attack, so it was natural that I favore more aggressive tactics. Which was odd, considering that I was supposed to protect myself long enough to summon something. However, I could also use my summons in an offensive manner.

"Flower Frenzy: Green Dragon Overgrowth Maelstrom!"

I launched a blurring maelstrom of vivid and dizzying colors, the countless petals whirling about in a violent vortex that swept across the stage and sliced through concrete and debris alike. Miura backed away instinctively, desperately calling up a new defensive enchantment, but she found herself engulfed by the destructive spell.

Then a formation circle appeared below her and ripped the blizzard of deadly petals apart.

"Huff…huff…"

Panting, Miura leaned on her scythe. She was still heavily injured and slightly drained from the sheer effort, but I could see plenty of formation circles appearing all around her. She grinned triumphantly – even without looking around she knew that the entire arena was now under her control.

"I see…so that's how your magic works." She nodded at my chibi Green Dragon. "You draw whatever specific elemental magic you get from your Soul Beast…using it as a conduit to cast advanced elemental spells that you otherwise couldn't use. An encyclopedia of sorts."

Wow…she even understood my magic to this extent. That was right – in order to summon all these different Celestial Guardians, I needed to first learn the basic elemental spells (like fireball, icicles, razor leaf, earth spikes and lightning bolt) before I could conceptualize and create them within my soul sea (or whatever you call that internal spiritual dimension). However, I only had time to learn basic spells, other than wood magic. But because I had invested all my time and efforts into summoning magic, that had stunted whatever progress I made with elemental magic. Meaning, no matter how much I learned advanced wood magic, for example, I would find it extremely difficult to cast, because most of my memory s.p.a.ce or the operating system of my brain was occupied by summoing magic. Think of my brain as a computer – most of the computing power was dedicated to running summoning programs, and if I tried to run anything higher than a simple elemental program, my mind was going to lag. A lot…

To circ.u.mvent this weakness, I crystalized my knowledge of advanced wood magic in the form of Green Dragon, and I summoned him as an encyclopedia, as Miura put it. A spiritual reference from which I could more easily draw my knowledge of wood magic from – think of it as me summoning an external hard drive to help get free memory s.p.a.ce from somewhere, a separate hard drive that boosted my computing power. Of course, when linked in this way, Green Dragon could only exist in his chibi form, and it would be difficult for him to separate out and attack in his original, monstrous form. The upside, however, is that I had total access to his full power.

And I planned to use it…except that now I was in quite a predicament.

"That's…"

"Yup. You're not the only one with an encyclopedia."

Miura held up a grimoire with her free hand, grinning insidiously. Now I understood why she comprehended my complex magic so easily. She also had something similar, requiring a spiritual grimoire to a.s.sist her in casting her advanced black magic. Raising her hand, she allowed the ominous, black grimoire hover above her palm and open up, shadowy trendrils of dark mana spilling from its cursed pages.

"Grimoire Del Diablos."

"Are you just trying to come up with what sound like a fancy Spanish name? I'm pretty sure Grimoire is not Spanish."

"Oh, shut it. It sounds cool, doesn't it? Anyway, more importantly…" she gestured toward the many formation array circles that now surrounded us. "It's over. I've managed to set up all my formation arrays."

"Okay." I shrugged. "So what do they do?"

Thornbush began materializing all over us, thorned vines and plants engulfing the arena and turning it into a beautiful but deadly garden. Gleaming black roses bloomed to life along the bushes, their sinister petals gleaming dazzlingly as they drank in the light. Lethal thorns sprouted from the snaking tendrils, turning the perimeter into a barbed fence that kept everyone out and me and her in. There was no escape from this garden of darkness – I could tell that the thorns were enchanted. They weren'tjust powerful and sharp. Each of them was dripping with a lethal curse that would force whoever seeking an exit to pay a very high price.

Most likely one's life.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Miura inquired, admiring her own handiwork. "I'm very proud of this technique. You should be honored – this is my ultimate technique. Up till now, there has been no one capable of breaking through it…with the exception of Captain Kureha, but she's a monster. And even she ended up heavily injured when smas.h.i.+ng through my Garden of Black Roses. You should be honored that I'm forced to use it against you."

"Yeah, I'm so honored." I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. I could feel a tremendous pressure weighing down on me, the curses from the black roses slowly strangling and suffocating me.

"Come on…you use flower magic as well. You ought to be able to appreciate it. Except…as you probably know best of all, every rose has its thorns."

"Uh huh. You sure talk a lot, huh?"

"Well, I do need to pa.s.s the time while waiting for the curses to take effect. And…as I said, there is no escape from here. You're trapped here, away from the light of the outside, and as long as you remain within my Garden, you will receive the full brunt of my curses. You'll die a lonely death, away from the eyes of everyone." She brushed her fingers through her hair. "Well, don't worry. I was speaking metaphorically. You won't actually die – the boundary field will keep you alive."

"I was never worried about that." I charged at her. "And if I get rid of you, I a.s.sume the curse will be lifted."

"You might be right." Miura toyed with her ominous grimoire. "But don't forget…this entire s.p.a.ce is now my territory."

"!!!"

Black bolts of energy streamed through the place where I had been hurtling along, and I dodged in midair, cleaving apart several of the bolts with my swords. Then vines lashed out, trying to ensnare me. I cut them apart with blurring strokes, my two blades transforming into a whirlwind of black and white blurs. Even so, I could feel myself slowly weakening as the curses continued to squeeze the life out of me.

I wouldn't be able to last long here.

"Oh my…this is dangerous. I really can't underestimate you. To think you still have such power and can still move like that even when under the effects of my cursed Garden." Miura closed in on me, swinging her scythe. I had the impression that she had somewhat recovered from her injuries and nourished herself before I brought both swords up to parry her curved weapon. We sprang apart and I a.s.sessed her more closely, my gla.s.ses scanning her figure.

Yeah, her injuries had mostly mended superficially and her bleeding had stopped. It wasn't as if she had fully healed herself, but she had managed to apply emergency firstaid with her grimoire. Seemed like the Garden of Black Roses was both a place of blessings and curses. Blessings for its owner and curses for trespa.s.sers.

"Huff…"

I dropped to a knee, feeling giddier than ever. Miura smiled and descended upon me, her scythe swinging toward my neck.

For a moment, I closed my eyes. And then smiled.

"Bloom, Hundred-Colored Flowers."

"?!"

 Miura tried to move back in shock, but she was too late. Both of my swords shone brightly before erupting into countless vines that caught her. She tried to slice some of them apart with her scythe, but there were far too many of them, and a good number of tendrils wrapped around her arms and legs, restraining her. She thrashed about desperately, and had shadowy bolts blast and cut apart the vines that had ensnared her, but black petals blossomed into being between her spells and my vines, absorbing the dark projectiles and splitting apart into confetti-like pieces.

"What is this?!"

"I'm sorry…but I'll be taking your mana for myself."

"Eh? How…?!"

Miura's complexion grew paler as she found herself weakening drastically. Her movements grew slower, more sluggish, and her breathing much heavier. She slumped, held up only by the vines now protruding from both of my swords. Any effort on her part to cast any new spells was quickly dispelled, her mana diverted away.

"What's…what's going on…?"

Her eyes widened when she saw buds appear along the vines that entangled her. Slowly but surely, each of them bloomed, transforming into glowing flowers. A myriad of colors, a diversity of species, and each flower spread out its petals and blossomed majestically under the dark shade of her crumbling Garden.

"Isn't a Garden with nothing but Black Roses boring?" I asked wearily, forcing a smile as I drank in her mana. "Let's liven things up with a little more color."

"That's…that's my mana inside those flowers…"

"Yeah, and I'll be receiving them gratefully. Thanks for the meal."

Miura struggled one last time, but despite her best efforts, she couldn't break free. With each pa.s.sing second, she felt drastically weaker, her strength and mana slipping away from her grasp and flowing into me.

"d.a.m.n…d.a.m.n it!!!!!"

All around us, the Garden of Black Roses disintegrated into countless, dissipating black petals, leaving very little trace that it had once existed.